14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Civil Rights (1868)

Citation: The House Joint Resolution proposing the 14th amendment to the Constitution, June 16, 1866; Enrolled Acts and Resolutions of Congress, 1789-1999; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives.How to use citation info.(on Archives.gov)

Passed by Congress June 13, 1866, and ratified July 9, 1868, the 14th amendment extended liberties and rights granted by the Bill of Rights to former slaves.

Following the Civil War, Congress submitted to the states three amendments
as part of its Reconstruction program to guarantee equal civil and legal rights
to black citizens. The major provision of the 14th amendment was to grant citizenship
to “All persons born or naturalized in the United States,” thereby
granting citizenship to former slaves. Another equally important provision was
the statement that “nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty,
or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction
the equal protection of the laws.” The right to due process of law and
equal protection of the law now applied to both the Federal and state governments.
On June 16, 1866, the House Joint Resolution proposing the 14th amendment to
the Constitution was submitted to the states. On July 28, 1868, the 14th amendment was declared, in a certificate of the Secretary of State, ratified by the necessary 28 of the 37 States, and became part of the supreme law of the land.

Congressman John A. Bingham of Ohio, the primary author of the first section
of the 14th amendment, intended that the amendment also nationalize the Federal
Bill of Rights by making it binding upon the states. Senator Jacob Howard of
Michigan, introducing the amendment, specifically stated that the privileges
and immunities clause would extend to the states “the personal rights
guaranteed and secured by the first eight amendments.” Historians disagree on how widely Bingham's and Howard's views were shared at the time in the Congress, or across the country in general. No one in Congress explicitly contradicted their view of the Amendment, but only a few members said anything at all about its meaning on this issue. For many years, the Supreme Court ruled that the Amendment did not extend the Bill of Rights to the states.

Not only did the 14th amendment fail to extend the Bill of Rights to the states;
it also failed to protect the rights of black citizens. One legacy of Reconstruction
was the determined struggle of black and white citizens to make the promise
of the 14th amendment a reality. Citizens petitioned and initiated court cases,
Congress enacted legislation, and the executive branch attempted to enforce
measures that would guard all citizens’ rights. While these citizens did
not succeed in empowering the 14th amendment during the Reconstruction, they
effectively articulated arguments and offered dissenting opinions that would
be the basis for change in the 20th century.

(Information excerpted from Teaching With Documents
[Washington, DC: The National Archives and Records Administration and the National
Council for the Social Studies, 1998] p. 40.)